This work features the Footscray Community Arts Centre’s The Amplified Elephants who play the Resonance Table — a new touch table interface created by Jonathan Duckworth’s CiART team at RMIT University. RE:EVOLUTION uses sound, pre-recorded text and video as a mechanism for exploring the place of the mind in the context of evolution. Source material for the text has been adpated from the writings of Charles Darwin and other prominent thinkers.

The sonic material for RE:EVOLUTION has been created by The Amplified Elephants over nearly two years of development. Two particularly significant activities in this process have been: the creation of audio samples to be used in the Resonance Table; and the collaborative writing of notated scores for the BOLT musicians.

Many of us feel a sense of wonder when it comes to science, and many of us would dearly love to understand the theories of science much more deeply than we will ever be able to. How do people without scientific training come to understand their place in the world of natural phenomena?

Liz Hofbauer & Daniel Doherty: Photos by Leiko Manalang

RESONANCE

The RESONANCE table is an interactive audiovisual artwork conceived by artist and designer Jonathan Duckworth and developed by programmer Ross Eldridge as part of a research project at the CiART lab, RMIT University, Melbourne. The large tabletop display takes center stage around which The Amplified Elephant musicians manipulate physical objects and vivid computer graphics to construct sound and visual landscapes. The digital artwork promotes collaborative and cooperative modes of interaction between the performers standing face-to-face around the display as they build complex sounds individually and collectively. The movement and manipulation of objects, touch and gesture on the display generates sonic perturbations, pulsing visual lines and glowing fragmented geometries projected on the table and around the stage. The artwork creates a space for intimacy and moments of playful resonance between the performers as they strive to find aesthetic equilibrium and balance within the composition.

CiART, RMIT UNIVERSITY

CiART (Creative interventions, Art and Rehabilitative Technology) is a research lab directed by Dr Jonathan Duckworth, a Vice Chancellors Research Fellow at the School of Media and Communication, RMIT University. The lab consolidates research in interactive media art, games, design, and digital technology toward developing applications in allied health related disciplines for societal benefit and impact. Dr Duckworth is collaborating with Professor Peter H. Wilson, a psychologist from Australian Catholic University, and neuroscientist Professor David Shum from Griffith University to develop RESONANCE: A digital media artwork for cooperative group interaction in the rehabilitation of acquired brain injury.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Resonance is supported by a Synapse Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant through the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its Arts funding and advisory body.